The rantings of a working mom of twins with a serious fiber addiction

felting

Well, as we know around these parts….Christmas lasts until at least late February. Luckily, I had a hair appointment with my stylist and friend, Lacey, at Frenchy’s earlier this month. I had Lacey’s Christmas gift done, so I was excited to deliver it to her. She is super into bugs and has a quite impressive collection of them. I was hoping mine could join the fold.

Loosely based on a New England Silk Moth. Kinda funny since we fiber fiends cringe at the ‘M’ word.

Last Saturday Night was the Iron Giant Tribute Show at community/A Little Known Shop in Anaheim, CA. Hooray!! My very first art show!

My family taking a look at all of the awesome art!

Community is a great little space that has small shops, gallery space, a craft space and a great walkway in-between where all sorts of vendors had set up their tables. They had food and music in the back!

Shopping and food!

I got the chance to catch up with my friend Kati who was in town for the weekend.

My mother insisted that I get a picture next to my tapestry. She’s really into sharing this kind of stuff with her friends.

My mother insisted I get this picture for her….

We had a great time and it was so nice to see old friends and meet some new people. I also bought a few things in the shop!

At Stitches West I took all kinds of video…imagine my surprise when I got home and all of that video had no audio. I couldn’t figure out what happened. I joked that I should edit it together and we could throw in some audio all MST3K style…Courtney said I should try and see if I could make it black and white and play some funny music behind it.

So this morning I sat here editing it, in complete silence. I went into my resources to see if I could find some funny music to throw behind it and, somehow…and I have no idea how it happened, I seem to have been able to retrieve the audio (but only for the edited clip).

I have a reputation of having some sort of mutant superpower that effects electronics.

Over the holiday weekend, my daughter caught some nasty cough…then my son. They have been getting up in the middle of the night and coughing like crazy. Two nights in a row, I couldn’t get a decent nights sleep to save my life. It’s cold and uncomfortable when you’re trying to sleep on the floor next to the sick kid on the couch.

Because there isn’t much to do 1 a.m. on a Monday morning when your kid is miserable and wants to chat and eat popsicles, I did things like knit and felt a couple of antlers.

So this is what I have to show for taking care of my sick kids, and starting to get run down and sick in the process.

Sumptuous Cowl

Deer with Little Antlers Hat.

I would consider each of these quickie projects. Each took just hours to finish because they were knit with bulky yarn. My stash is a little bit lighter now.

In my mad dash to get things done, and trying to pry some knitting time into my life, I have been able to get to the shop here and there.

I will be the first to admit…there are times that I go to the shop because I am too lazy to try to set up my swift and ball winder at home. And who among us hasn’t ever made an excuse to buy new yarn, right? And I might just be more productive around other knitters (or I might not).

Either way, the shop is a good place to be sometimes. At this particular time, Flo had her “boyfriend” set up…and by “boyfriend” I mean the tag team that is her *electric* winder and swift.

Flo winding my yarn.

She helped me out by spinning a ball of yarn for me that you will see knit up into a little Christmas *something* later.

While I was there, I worked diligently to get stuff done (which you will also see later). Flo was working on some Christmas gifties too! Check out her coal!

Over the weekend we got together for Ash’s Birthday. Just a little get-together at my place, filled with Barbeque, baked goods, mixed drinks and fiber arts galore!

Yummy!

Here’s a nifty little side story. As most of my friends are aware, I am huge sci-fi nerd. I am particularly fond of Doctor Who. So Mallory was wondering what her next needle felting project should be and I decided to pull up an image for Gallifreyan symbols for her to take a look at.

Gallifreyan Symbols

Mallory's Needle Felting

I don’t think she is too sure she likes it yet, but I think once it’s done, it’ll be awesome! All of her stuff always turns our looking pretty darn good.

I was incredibly lucky to get to the shop early this past week. Everyone had left work early for the holiday weekend, so I decided to get out of there too.

I met up with Mal at the shop, determined to spend my time catching up on my personal projects because I had not really devoted any time to them recently. Don’t get me wrong, I am seriously determined to get some charity projects done, but I have a few things just sitting here and I was feeling like I was losing some momentum.

I started knitting on my Mountain View Cardigan. Oh yeah….*that sweater*…it’s still around. One of these days, I might even finish it. For right now, baby steps. It’s not complete, but I did finish the back of it.

Mountain View...someday.

While I worked, Mal did her felting thing…

Mall's project

I brought my Phoenix and the Carpet project but I hadn’t planned on working on it. Then Michelle showed up and I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to snap a couple of pics of our dueling KAL projects! We’re both a little behind on our clues…

Woohoo! Holiday weekends mean we get out of work early generally. This holiday weekend was no exception. It was a good thing because I had some errands to run.

Since I was out, I figured I would take care of my medical refferral stuff before heading to the shop. Now, I am kind of a ditz…I know this…but I am not quite sure how I thought I would be going to get these tests done and get off without having to give blood. I guess I just wasn’t thinking. It’s probably a good thing though…I have been a big freaking baby about all this stuff lately.

I got to the shop hungry and a little woozy. It was pretty darn hot out and the shop AC was acting funny. Ash and I decided to order in Thai food. We weren’t going to try and walk down to our usual spot.

Progress on The Mountain View Cardigan

I started off the night working on my Mountain View Cardi. I feel like I have been so “off again, on again” with this one, but I am sure it is just because I am distracted with other things on the horizon.

While I worked on my knitting, Vera had asked Mallory to help her daughter learn to needle felt. She bought Teddy a frog kit while they were in Albuquerque on Vera’s Knit Shop tour to promote her patterns.

Mallory helping Teddy out with her needle felting

And there she goes!

I was feeling ansty and decided I should cake up my yarn for The Unique Sheep Mystery Lace KAL. I actually have the first day of this KAL off because I have to go in for more tests, but once that is done, I have the rest of the day to be a total lump on the couch. Michelle tells me that they normally release the first clue at midnight, so I have my yarn prepared and I’ll have the entire day to knit the first clue! Hooray!

My Unique Sheep yarn.

We also were trying to help Ashley out with her Hanna Cardigan. So far it looks absolutely gorgeous! I hope they bring back this colorway at some point, because I would love to knit a sweater in this color!! I just love Sanguine Gryphon!

Ash's lovely Hanna Cardigan

Mallory spent most of the evening helping Teddy out with her felting. Teddy even stabbed herself at one point, so she is officially a needle felter! She was having a little trouble with her symmetry, but Mallory guided her. At the end of the night, she had nearly completed her frog!

I have been walking around in some sort of haze for a week. Maybe it’s sensory overload? Stress? Wanderlust?

All of the above?

(Shrugs) I don’t know, but I will be honest and say my mind has been elsewhere.

It’s not to say I haven’t been crafting…I have. But when I try and figure out what it is I want to talk about, my thoughts escape me and I end up walking around staring at the sky. I am sure people must think I am crazy.

OK, time for me to stay on track!

I actually went and hung out to knit with my girlfriends this weekend. It had been a whole three weeks since I had been knitting with them! We sat in the Starbucks at Barnes and Noble and talked books and got crafty.

Mallory's felting

More of Mallory's Felting

While progress is slow, it’s progress none the less. I have made it to the 6 inch mark on my bell sleeves and completed my decrease. Now I have 9 1/2 inches to go and I can start finishing the sleeve. I really done have all that much knitting left to do on this thing, but much like my reading habits, I only complete it in spurts…

OK, so I have gone a little nutty since starting felting. Now I want to felt down my stash…well not ALL of it…just the “less than 4oz.” bunch of stuff. Ya know, the amounts to small to get any REAL yarn spun out of.

It has a lot more sparkle!

The bottom...

I am not sure you can really get the feel of all the sparkle this has. I took a batt that I had gotten a couple years back from artclub. I stabbed the hell out of it, scalded it, rubbed it like crazy and let it dry.

I still have plenty left over to make more. I think maybe my etsy store might get some items this summer!